The sad, inspiring way Jason Day has become a believer in golf being part of the Olympics

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The motivation for an athlete, especially on the largest stage, is obvious. For golfers, the majors need no build-up. The U.S. Open, the Open Championship, hell even the PGA Championship could be played on an abandoned golf course in front of no TV cameras and for no prize money with a bowling trophy retrieved from a pawn shop handed to the winner, and the best players in the world would spill blood, eat dirt and likely even pay for their own range balls just for the chance to compete.

But the Olympics aren’t in that position yet. There’s been a grudging acceptance, an obligation, at best a growing curiosity about the event’s importance, since the sport was reinstated to the Games in 2016 for the first time in more than a century. For this third appearance in the Olympics, something different might be starting to hit home with golfers about the power of a competition held once every four years. And that difference has little to do with other golfers or growing the game.

No, what the Olympics seems to be doing for the best golfers in the world is to show them another side of elite sports and how life-consuming excellence can be, and more pointedly, how indelible the pain of failure truly is. It’s the experiences of other athletes, not golfers, that is driving home how big the Olympics could be for golf.

Dozens of golfers already have spent time in the Olympic Village, shared moments with other athletes in other sports, experienced the Opening Ceremony together as a team, even (in the case of Alex Noren) gone to the gym with them and dispensed golfing wisdom to all the burgeoning golfers from other sports. That shared awareness of excellence is a kind of motivator, but the most powerful effect came from watching them in action, and not just watching them succeed. The pain of losses is as much on display in the Olympics as the joy in victories. In the end, it may be a more visceral, even a little haunting experience, and maybe even more inspirational.

Perhaps the most telling revelation came from PGA Tour veteran Jason Day, who opted out of competing in the Rio Games in 2016, despite being the No. 1 golfer in the world. At the time, Day cited concerns over the Zika virus. Eight years later, having earned his way back on to the Australian team after missing in Tokyo in 2021, Day wishes he had thought about it differently.

“I wasn't ever thinking about [the Olympics],” he said. Looking back on 2016, there was some regret, obviously, not going down. … I think I was like to a point where I was kind of burnt out, and the last thing on my mind was representing Australia in the Olympics.

“Looking back on it, I should just have sucked it up and gone down and played. I think in that case it would have been a great experience for me to go down there and represent something that's bigger than you.”

But beyond the value he places on his appearance in the Paris Games, Day was most struck by what he saw when watching a Round of 16 women’s judo match pitting Diyora Keldiyorova against defending Olympic Gold medalist and superstar Uta Abe. Abe had not lost a match in five years but her sudden defeat to Keldiyorova in the 52 kilogram division left the champion distraught. Stunned, she could barely get to her feet and had to be carried from the tatami in tears by her coach. She collapsed at the sidelines, her screams echoing through the Arena Champ-de-Mars. The pain of the moment lingered almost 48 hours later for Day.

“Watching judo and the true emotions of what they go through when they lose, and watching some of these women break down, showing how much it actually means, not only to represent their country but like to try and win a medal—because to them, this is their biggest tournament of the year, if not every four years, and this means so much more to them,” he said.

“For us, we can play a tournament next week if we want to, so it just keeps rolling over. To watch an athlete go through that emotion of trying to overcome a loss is very inspiring to watch. So it definitely has changed the way that I view golf in the Olympics, and that's why I'm very thankful for the opportunity to be able to compete here this week.”

The lost opportunity that only the quadrennial Olympics defines is starting to have a certain resonance in golf. Even the normally stoic Hideki Matsuyama talked about being motivated by the failure he’s seen from other athletes. And again the case for him was judo.

“Recently, I started getting close to a particular athlete who really competed and prepared towards this Olympics, but didn't qualify this year,” he said. “With that interaction, I learned how very special the Olympics is, and it's something very impactful. So I want to play for those athlete who are not here, even though they prepare their best.”

While it’s been well-documented that elite athletes can be motivated by a fear of failure, what Day seems to be talking about is a growing respect golfers as Olympians are developing for the once-in-a-lifetime moment that the Olympics means to other athletes. The positive side of that equation is obvious, the thrill of victory is as universal in golf as it is in judo. In their regular jobs, though, golfers rarely win so the idea of losing becomes acceptably tolerable, if only because it has to be. At the Olympics, though, the agony of defeat isn’t a theoretical construct or even a long-ago promotional segment for a sports TV show, it’s a cold, hard truth. It’s real and potentially even more inspiring than a medal stand and a national anthem.

For Day’s part, being part of the Australian team has given him the opportunity to find a new source of motivation that only the Olympics can provide. Cycling silver medalist Clyde Sefton talked to the team earlier this week, and Day came away wowed by “his sheer determination.”

“His sheer determination of becoming an Olympian was impressive,” Day said. “About when he went to his mom and said, ‘Hey, I want to become an Olympic athlete and I want to wear the green and gold.’

“Then going through his whole story of how he was going to get it, and showing that determination from such a young age … because no one teaches that. It's something that that's like instilled in you. And making the actual dream happen is another story. I mean, it was really inspiring, and like when you talk to him, he's got such a calm demeanor. It's so cool to be able to get to chat to him especially on his previous experience with the Olympics, what he went through mentally and physically.”

Here’s a guy in Day who couldn’t be bothered to attend the Games when he was the top player in the world become a man just happy to be competing at sports’ biggest event (and even hinting at trying to find his way on the team eight years on when the Games are held in Brisbane and Day will be 44 and in his 26th year as a pro). Now, in this moment after watching a scene he might have never seen had he not been here, Day seems to reflect that changing attitude and new motivation the Olympics are providing to golfers in the starkest of detail. Even when that motivation is about the despair of failure. Maybe golf is learning that the power of the Olympics isn’t merely in the cheers. Rather, what might resonate the most is the tears.